Security Needs
Cameras at the Pizzeria
Low prices and ease of use are putting streaming surveillance in the hands of business owners like Timmy Yan, who owns three outlets of Cybelle’s Pizza, a San Francisco Bay Area restaurant chain. He had the cameras installed to keep tabs on his employees. While paying bills and doing paperwork at home, he keeps an eye on the computer screen, which displays live streams from the cameras, one of which is positioned at each eatery to view the kitchen and front counter. He’s also checked it while on vacation in Hawaii. The service, from Vital Link Business Systems, which focuses on the restaurant market, costs $99 per camera per month.
Yan says there hasn’t been a break-in or robbery since he got the system last year, and sees added benefits in worker productivity and reduced costs. "Being a small business operator, you cannot be three places at one time," Yan said. "I thought it was a pretty inexpensive way to keep tabs on my stores. My employees work harder than if I didn’t have the camera; so, without it, I would probably need more employees."
In fact, one employee has been fired after a manager got online and spied her giving wine and pizza to her boyfriend for free.
Digital services are, of course, nothing if not flexible, and other security applications are joining forces with remote video. Motion-sensitive cameras might capture images of a burglar; low-light cameras might catch a marauding backyard raccoon. Several companies are working on e-mailing stills to a supervisor’s handheld when something moves in the camera’s view. Combine remote surveillance with other up-and-coming applications like biometrics (such as face, iris and fingerprint identification) and the lines between the security and information-technology industries begin to blur.
Surveillance cameras, it turns out, can do lot more than ward off crime and keep employees in line. Jack Brown, president of Web Marketing Inc., is plugging a business-monitoring system by Surveyor Corp. to Exxon Mobil gas stations across the country. Brown reminds clients that the same camera they use to watch their employees can be used to read the license plates of those who don’t pay for gas, to make sure the doors to the carwash are closed when the temperature’s freezing, or to spy on the competition’s gas prices across the street.
In the brave digital world, the security professional’s scope expands from watching people and guarding assets to – well, no one’s quite sure what.
"The video industry in terms of security is morphing from security to security-plus," said Joe Freeman, president of JP Freeman Co., a security research firm. The company’s most recent report, its first about CCTV and digital video surveillance, is its’ best-selling in the company’s 18-year history. He continued, "It’s starting to become a communication device as well as a security service."
Look for Part II – A look at the players in the remote surveillance market on Wednesday, January 2, 2002
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